Emergency landing sees Qantas’ reputation up in the air
A report in The Courier Mail asks what Aussie didn’t swell with pride when, in the film Rain Man, the flight-phobic Raymond said he would fly Qantas because ”Qantas never crashed’?
That throwaway line told the world what Australians already knew: that passengers could put blind trust in the Flying Kangaroo.
But that was then.
Last week’s emergency – when a Qantas jumbo, en route from London to Melbourne, was forced into an emergency landing in Manilla after a huge 3m hole blew in the plane’s fuselage – has since shaken that faith.
It is the sort of horror the aircraft’s 365 passengers and crew should experience only in bad movies.
By some chilling coincidence, just the previous day pilots had expressed concern that Qantas’s servicing of aircraft at overseas facilities, in a bid to cut operating costs, was compromising safety standards.
Today, up to 20 per cent of such services are carried out by engineers in Singapore and other locations.
We do not want to pre-empt any investigation into the Manilla incident, but some observers have already linked last Friday’s drama to this growth in overseas maintenance. Others have gone further and alleged the aircraft in question was a “rust bucket”, identified as corroded as long ago as March.
Passengers have every right to be alarmed if either of these claims is true.
Either way, it is a bad look for Qantas, especially since the airline’s own safety audit last year found serious problems with outsourced engineering, including screws left on wings and cables removed and not replaced.
They were concerns Qantas later played down.
It is understandable for any airline struggling to remain profitable after 9/11, SARS, avian influenza and spiralling oil prices to endeavour to offset its losses.
Two immediate responses for Qantas – the cutting of less frequented routes and the slashing of 1500 jobs – were deeply unpopular but might at least be excusable.
But what is totally indefensible is any attempt, now or in the future, for any airline to put corporate profits ahead of passenger safety.
Free market evangelists tell us deregulation provides maximum consumer benefits.
But, when it comes to air travel, the market alone cannot ensure safety, and we cannot wait for a catastrophe before governments are shocked into action.
It is not just Qantas’s reputation on the line, but also the safety of countless passengers, not to mention the good name of Australia itself.
Tourism remains an enormous export for this country; we cannot afford to become known as the destination with dodgy jumbos.
We therefore wonder when the Federal Government will provide overseers such as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau with the power to increase minimum safety standards, and the teeth to ensure those standards are met, both at Australian and overseas engineering facilities.
Peace of mind sometimes comes at a high price, but safety for air travellers must come first, second and third,
A Report by The Mole from the Courier Mail.
John Alwyn-Jones
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